Friday 5 August 2016

458 Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World




First  viewed :  2  September  1980

This  was  a  fun  series. Science  fiction  writer  Arthur  C  Clarke  "now  in  retreat  in  Sri  Lanka"  fronted  a  series,  in  Roald  Dahl  style,  of  half  hour  programmes  exploring  various  unexplained  phenomena  from  around  the  world. The  memorable  title  sequence  featured  a  striking  crystal  skull , supposedly  of  MesoAmerican  origin  though  this  has  been  seriously  questioned .

After  an  introductory  programme  as  a  taster  for  the  series  , the  episodes  were  thematically  organised  with   Clarke  covering  UFO's , apemen, stone  circles  and  so  on. A  final  programme  , the  thirteenth  episode  wrapped  things  up  and  included  items  that  couldn't  be  so  neatly  categorised. The  items  I  remember  were :

  • A  whole  episode  devoted  to  the  Tunguska  explosion of  which  I'd  never  previously  heard
  • The  supposed  sighting  of  long-necked  dinosaurs  in  the  Congo
  • An  ancient  artefact  from  Baghdad  that  worked  as  a  battery
  • A  supposed  mermaid  in  Brighton  Museum
Given  the  length  of  the  episodes,  the  treatment  of  each  subject  was  superficial  in  historical  or  scientific  terms  but  it  did  its  job  in  provoking  thought  on  some  of  the  more  interesting  mysteries  of  the  planet  and  beyond. There  were  two  subsequent  series  with  Clarke, Arthur  C  C Clarke's  World  of   Strange  Powers  in  1985  and  Arthur  C  Clarke's  Mysterious  Universe  in  1994  but  these  passed  me  by.  He  died  in  2008  aged  90. 

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